User Reviews

While there was nothing SUPER exciting about this episode, it made a lot of ground work and progressed the main plot while still successfully carrying out the plot of the episode. It also gave us even more painful parallels between Dean and Mary, and the ways that John inevitably fails them both. And also hints of the toxic "all monsters are monsters and should die" dogma he tried to drill into his children. Seeing all these glimpses of the person John will inevitably become is heart-wrenching and Drake clearly understands the complexity of the character.

But what is really going to stick with me at the end is John giving Mary the bike. He doesn't ask her to stay when she stops hunting, even though he clearly wants her to. He let's her go. Something the John we know from SPN is never able to do, even if the context is different. He put her happiness first in that moment, and it was so impossibly bittersweet.

Carlos however, remains perfect and a shining gem of a character.

Its all about the trauma. These characters have all been through such traumatic lives to date and the toll that takes is staggering. This show and the actors are all handling its portrayal with skill and heart.

I am also loving all the frying pan to the head parallels to Dean and Cas from OG SPN, between John and Mary, Lata and Tony, and more. So much was missed in the subtlety and snails pace of character development in the mothership that its nice to see all the overt, do you see this? Do you? It's right here.

This episode did an excellent job of advancing the overall arc of the Akrida and pushing the characters forward as well. Loved it and can't wait to see what's next!

So far the character development has been following a pattern of teeing up some character flaw, and then knocking it down in one episode. This episode follows a similar pattern, but at least gives an insight into something we've been wanting, which is a glimpse into why Mary Winchester ever wanted to get out of hunting.

Otherwise, the episode is a classic lesson of why instantly getting a resolution is not ever as satisfying as fully, and completely developing a story and a full resolution. The new monster gets a new power, and the old monster gets a new power, so that we can wrap up this new angst created in this episode between John and Mary.

Seriously, why change the way the djinn work? In the original series they operated through a toxin, and fed on the blood of the victim, now they are more like a psychic that feeds on the dream energy? If you needed someone to be able to "save" Mary, then why not just make a new psychic, or bring Missouri Mosley into the picture. Otherwise, they are only using the "new" djinn to expose the akkrida mind control? Is that's the only way they can manufacture progress in the akkrida plotline, then it's no wonder this isn't going anywhere.

The story starts going stale, so a new character shows up, one we've never even heard mention of, who not only saves the day, but reveals part of the secret plan of the overarching enemy.

It's nice to see a plain old monster from the original series, but it sucks to see how the writing takes shortcuts just to get to certain points. It's okay if the character development takes more than one episode.